Measles big comeback: One confirmed Colo. case in 2015

People visit Disneyland on January 22, 2015, in Anaheim, Calif. The theme park known as “The Happiest Place on Earth” for spreading happiness has a new contagion, measles, with an outbreak of 51 cases linked to Disneyland. California’s deputy director of the state’s Center for Infectious Diseases, Dr. Gil Chavez, has recommended children under the age of 12 months and people who have never received a measles vaccination stay away from the park while the disease event continues. AFP PHOTO / FREDERIC J. BROWNFREDERIC J. BROWN/AFP/Getty Images

Colorado still only has one confirmed case of measles this year, the state health department confirmed Friday, Jan. 23. It’s been linked to the Disneyland outbreak in California.

The national count for 2015 has hit 70 in 11 states, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Most stem from the Disneyland outbreak.

The U.S. experienced a record number of measles cases during 2014. There were 644 reported cases in 27 states, the CDC says. There had been just under 200 cases nationwide in 2013. Measles had been considered eliminated in the U.S. in 2000, but low vaccination rates are being blamed for measles’ big comeback.

In Colorado, the El Paso County Public Health Department reported in early January that a woman, hospitalized with the measles after visiting the park in mid-December, was the county’s first reported case in more than two decades.

Measles is a highly contagious virus that lives in the nose and throat mucus of the infected person, the CDC says. It causes high fever, cough, runny nose and red, watery eyes. Tiny white spots can appear inside the mouth. Eventually a rash appears, usually beginning as flat red spots on the face at the hairline that spread downward to the neck, trunk and limbs. Small raised bumps might appear on the red spots. The spots can merge together.

Children often develop ear infections and sometimes viral and bacterial pneumonia. Almost a third of children under 5 stricken by measles are hospitalized. One or two children die per thousand cases, according to the CDC.

The virus can spread through coughing and sneezing. It can live suspended in air or on a surface for up to two hours. In other words, a person can become infected in an apparently empty room. People can spread measles four days before to four days after the rash appears. It is so contagious that 90 percent of people close to an infected person who are not immune through vaccination or past exposure will get the measles.

It is imperative that the law be changed to mandate quarantines for homes where someone has contracted an infectious disease, such as whooping cough and measles and chicken pox. I contracted whooping cough when we lived in Pennsylvania in the late 40s. Public Health put a huge orange quarantine sign on the house and I and my sisters could not go out. I believe the period was for six weeks. We had measles on an army post and again we were quarantined. That is an excellent way to contain outbreaks.

I am so afraid for infants in our family who are too young to be inoculated, and they would be the most vulnerable.

Electa Draper is the health writer for The Denver Post and has covered every news beat in a 22-year journalism career at three newspapers. She has a bachelor's degree in biology and a master's in journalism.